Thankfully, this year, the timing appeared perfect having heard of their emergence in Gloucestershire during the week and on Sunday 17/05, I had the day free to myself. With the weather set fair for the morning at least, we were good to go!
So on a lovely bright morning, I drove down to the Cirencester area of Gloucestershire. I spent a good half hour wandering down the Daglingworth track of Cirencester Park Woods in the hope of finding some Pearl-Bordered Fritillary. I wasn't overly confident of finding any as I know how hard they are to find here. Predictably no luck, but was still a nice stroll through the sun-lit glades, with the sounds of mewing Buzzards echoing through the woods. I also had a couple of brief Siskin over calling.
It was now mid-morning and it was time to move onto my main target, a short 15 minute or so drive to Strawberry Banks Nature Reserve between Cirencester & Stroud.
After winding through some tiny little windy lanes along a stunning little leafy valley, I parked up. By this time, I was pretty excited to be honest & quickly shot up the path through Three Groves Wood. I soon arrived at the edge of the first of the two fields that make up the Strawberry Banks reserve and began my search. I say search, I walked a handful of paces into the field and up flew my first Marsh Fritillary, followed by another, then another! The place was riddled with the little orangey stunners!
For the next couple of hours, I was like a kid in a sweet shop, wandering around the grassy slopes snapping away and absorbing the spectacle. The majority of them were immaculate and I watched several crawling out of the grass to dry out, having literally just emerged! I'm really pleased I actually waited until now to see them as I had literally picked the perfect day!
Matthew Oates, a renowned butterfly expert was there too, counting them (a completely ridiculous task if you ask me!). He told me I'd come on a special day as his count of 626 of the highest ever recorded at the site!! Not sure how you can come up with a watertight count when they're literally everywhere and constantly moving around, but hey, he's the expert!!
By the time I got round to exploring the site a little more the sun went in so I saw very little else other than a few Dingy Skippers & Small Heath. The place was full of Early Purple Orchids, as well as a handful of Lesser Butterfly Orchids, just starting to flower. Towards the top of the slopes, quite a few Kidney Vetch were also beginning to flower, however I failed to track down any Small Blues despite an extensive search.
I eventually dragged myself away and took the lovely scenic drive to the edge of Stroud, to Rodborough Common, my last stop of the day. It is a beautiful place and was full of Cowslips and Early Purple Orchids, as well as several song-flighting Tree Pipit, my first of the year. I took the long walk to the southern slopes to look for Adonis & Small Blues. Sadly, the temperature had dropped significantly and the there was a lot of cloud about. Still, I was here now and began my search.
A guy soon kindly showed me a resting Duke of Burgundy at the base of the bank on a small bit of scrub which was nice. Butterflies though were few and far between in these conditions and other than the odd Dingy Skipper & lots of Forester Moths, I just couldn't find what I was looking for.
Thankfully, just when I was thinking of calling it a day, a short burst of sun crept through the cloud cover intermittently. Sure enough, I soon tracked down some butterflies, finding a fresh Common Blue, a Brown Argus, a few Dingy Skipper & best of all, the hoped for Adonis Blue which sat out very obligingly for quite a while. Small Blues had not appeared to have emerged at the site, but I was more than happy to come away with the Adonis! End of a cracker of a day!
